I've been a PHP developer since it came out. I have seen several different PHP based shopping carts come and go. I have extensive experience with osCommerce and more recently OpenCart.

osCommerce seems to be outdated and really hasn't been developed for a long time. But it does have several extensions. On the other hand, OpenCart seems to have a more modern feel, but lacks extensions (especially non-commercial extensions).

Has anyone had any experience with other shopping carts that are PHP based?

I am on the verge of creating my own OS shopping cart (or maybe a fork of something) that meets the needs of a modern cart with open extensions. Although I am hoping the need for extensions would be minimal if the cart is planned correctly.

So I guess I am looking for input on what is already out there and also input for what is wanted by others.

If it comes down to creating a new shopping cart software. It would be based around PHP, MySQL (or maybe a DB abstraction class) and jQuery.

I've checked out Presta... the interface isn't very clean. It needs a lot of work. It is like someone started with a basic cart and decided to add all these extra features without any planning.

I have also looked at Magento. It is a great cart. The only problem is that the Community Edition (professional starts at $3k+ a year, enterprise $12k+ a year) is missing most of the features. Some very basic ones that are necessary for any modern online store.

I think Magento is very complete compared to the rest. There's tons of extensions provided by the community that eventually balanced out what is not in the community edition. I have been using them for 3 years and it's getting better everyday.